Meddle Not In The Affairs Of Dragons
by Demensha
Summary: Walden Macnair bites off more than he can chew with a bad tempered Horntail and finds himself dependent on the Dragonexpert, Charlie Weasley. Slash. Challenge Fic. Rating for later.
1. Chapter 1

**Meddle Not In The Affairs Of Dragons**

_This is the first part to a challenge i was set by Turathionen and is different to what i would normally write. It was inspired by a picture by Mad Carrot (deviant art) of Walden Macnair getting Pwned by a dragon. Now come the disclaimers and foremost, the WARNINGS_

_There will be slash and Charlie Weasley WILL be involved. This is the precursor to it mostly to ease myself into it. Somehow, i know it will end up fluffy beyond belief...sigh...i will try._

**Chapter 1**

The pain in his shoulder was white hot agony, lancing down his back and up his neck in a fresh wave of torment with the slightest of movements. Feverish sweat already dampened his brow, dappled his top lip and shivered down his muscular torso. He had bound it as best he could with the charred scraps of his shirt, having lost his wand to the consuming flames of the foul tempered dragon now roaring it's displeasure to the cloud-scudded skies. Crimson blood left a strange sheen on the black cloth, damp patches appearing where he perspired. Slumped against a rough cave wall his over-sensitive flesh could pick out every lump and pitfall in the pock-marked rock, the drying line of blood where a needle-fine point had stabbed at him, the grazes twinging along his ribs.

His boots felt too tight as his pulse thundered through his feet, his wrists and head, adrenalin still traversing the organic pathways. The loss he had endured so far was apparent by the dark stains congealing on the igneous cave floor and sticking the make-shift banadage to his pallid skin. Breathing was becoming difficult. It was laboured and erratic, and each floundering gasp reawakened numbing injuries. His vision was clouding at the edges though whether from losing pints of blood or through the dying sunlight he was not sure.

For once in his life, Walden Macnair felt a prickle in his stomach, a fluttering of chilly fingers running down his spine. For once in his life, he knew what it was to truly feel fear. This was going to be the end for him, to die alone in a hole of some unknown rockface.

A part of his mind hoped it would come quietly, black out and go in his sleep. He doubted that he would be that lucky however. There was one thing Macnair's were and that was stubborn. His body would hold out and he would stay deleriously lucid, aware of every single twitch and complaint it made only to be consumed by fever and lack of nourishment. At thirty-five he was in the prime of his life, strapping and healthy, at least he had been until his encounter with the sharp barb of the bull Horntail.

As the day darkened, so too did his thoughts sway. He was not only alone in person but his imagined escapings. He had no-one to return home to, nothing to stay alive for save for his own phobia of death. He had his share of lovers, true enough, non-commitent and easy to forget which had been perfect, at the time. Now he found himself wishing he had a partner to miss, a wife to leave and know he would be immortalised in whatever children they had, his biological legacy. In the very least, an embrace he could think of in his final moments, a kiss, a whispered name.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Macnair trembled. Lonliness left a bitter taste in his mouth and a knot of slime in his stomach, oily and cold. No-one would remember the kilted bounty hunter, the executioner and valiant death-eater he had been. No-one would remember the nights drinking, the feel of his fist when he was angry or the passionate hunger he tried in vain to feed with women.

A strangled whimper left his despairing lips, mingling with ever-distant pain. His sight had become hazy and he could make out less of his surroundings. His head felt heavy with the dull throb heralding illness. No longer could he hear the bone-quaking roars of the reptile outside. His eyes slipped closed.

-

When he came back into consciousness, he was aware of an ache in his lower back where he lacked support from where he was lying. The pain had subsided in his injuries however, remaining at a dull throb. His head felt a little clearer too though his throat burned with thirst, his lips cracked and dry. In all he decided he was better than he had been, either that or close to the end. He was undecided however, whether he should open his eyes or not.

It was warmer now, so it must be day time, but what light he could see through his lids was muted. Then what had he expected in a cave? The dragon was still out there too, flapping its great wings, probably still searching for him. He supressed a shiver. To know your last moments would be at the merciless teeth of a dragon was something he could not bare to think of and was one of the main reasons he hadn't crawled outside to end his suffering that and not being able to move.

"...not yet..." the words pierced his awarenes from somewhere to his left but the rest was lost in the dragon's wing-beats. A thought crossed his mind that he might be delerious still. "...what was...there...unauthori-..."

Macnair tried to open his eyes but found them to be heavy and took more effort than he would have liked. His vision was still bleary but not tinted with the glow from the cave entrance. He groaned as it stung his awareness, making him scowl and pulling at the cuts on his face. He drew in a breath with a hiss. The sounds of conversation stopped.

He tensed, listening, straining his ears. His mind was running at top speed, wondering if there were people and if they had gone, not knowing he was there. All he could hear was the dragon and it renewed the despair that had lulled him into fevered sleep. His eyes closed again.

-

"...you awake?" Macnair jerked awake, his eyes wide and immediately wished he hadn't. The voice beside him was definately not his imagination and was to be identified imediately. Though his shoulder screamed at him and his various wounds complained he turned as best he could to see what it was. "Good," It stated.

"Wha..." Walden began. His voice was croaky, as if it hadn't been used for some time.

"Don't try to move," The person used a pleasantly cool hand to gently urge him back to his lying position. The flapping had stopped. Hope surged through him then, safe in the knowledge he had been found, he had been rescued from the grasping hands of death. Obediently, Macnair lay back. He still couldn't see clearly but it didn't matter, this person did not seem threatening, a welcome relief after the Horntail.

"You were pretty bad when I found you, you need to take it easy," The voice was calm and laced with the dusky tones, soothing although Macnair would have been happy to see the pompous ass Lucius Malfoy at that moment. See. He couldn't see who it was. There was dim light seeping through but he could make nothing out. Panic began to snatch at him.

"I can't-" He tried to raise his hands but found others restraining him easily. Weakness and fatigue prevented the bounty hunter from putting up a fight and instead he resorted to trying to speak with a burning throat. "My...my eyes," Ravaged vocal chords protested at the strain on them though it failed to stop the tremour in them.

"They were smoke damaged, Dragon's fire can do that if you get too close," And that seemed to alleviate all fears. Macnair couldn't explain it but he trusted this person. Whoever it was had already saved his bacon and was now tending to his wounds with practised hands, so far as he could tell anyway. They were moving somewhere around his shoulder, undoing bindings, Macnair assumed. A moment later proved him right as he felt the bandage loosen and then the cold touch of metal as a pair of scissors brushed his arm to start cutting it away.

He heard the sound of metal on wood as the tools were put down to one side and then tensed as the same gentle hand as before slipped beneath his neck. "Take it easy, i'm going to use magic to raise you up a bit so i can clean your shoulder." To acquiesce, Macnair twitched his head and forced himself to relax.

It was the strangest sensation, tingling down his back and setting every hair on edge and very slowly he felt himself lift from the bed pallet and the bandage was removed with such care, it tugged at heart-strings he thought to be stone clad. Why should this person care for him so well after everything he had done?


	2. Chapter 2

**Meddle Not In The Affairs Of Dragons**

_Just a short chapter, but hopefully a good one._

**Chapter 2**

By the end of the ministrations, the seemingly endless nicks and cuts that had to be unbound, cleaned and rebound, had worn away at Macnair's gratefulness until he wanted to grab hold of his nurse and throttle them. Careful or not the pain was grating on his nerves and he had seen spots more than once, particularly when the wounds around his face had their stitches removed. It was a wonder, that, seeing as his eyes were bandaged up swathing him in darkness.

His shoulder, face, arms and lower legs had all been dressed in fresh bandages and he had thought his torment to be over and he would be left alone, at least for a time.

It was quiet.

Was he alone? A frown twitched across his forehead as he tried to listen for signs of movement.

Something warm and soft was shifted away from his body. Cloth. A sheet. It had been rearranged to pile over one hip leaving him exposed to a cool breeze he hadn't noticed before. Trying to recover himself and maintain what little dignity he had left, he reached for the cotton coverings but found a hand around his wrist. It was gentle but firm.

"Don't make this difficult, Macnair," The shock that this person knew who he was, gave his nurse the chance to push Walden's hand away. Deft fingers were already lifting away soiled bandages moving uncomfortably close to prized appendages.

The bounty hunter mused on that injury, so close to his pride, and remembered the swipe of a barbed tail. That was one of the latter, before his shoulder was gouged mercilessly by the great beast. He had seen the tail rushing towards him just a fraction too late and had jumped back just as-

White hot agony tore down his hip, jarring every nerve in his body accompanied with a throaty roar of pain. The hand that had been pushed down now snatched at the cloth daubed in cleaning fluids, grabbing hold of a set of fingers broader than he had expected and tore them back. The pain did not stop though. It seemed his nurse was cleverer than that, having dropped the cloth and taken it back up with the opposite hand, well out of Macnair's reach.

With each pass that was made over his hip and angling down towards more sensative areas, lances of colour sent dizzy waves through him. No matter how hard he squeezed at the fingers, no matter how he bellowed and swore blue murder, it would not stop.

"There. Now let go of me," The voice of his rescuer and now bane of his current existance, was still calm, but he detected a hint of strain there. If he'd caused them pain, it was only fair. Macnair's only wish was that he had done more.

Reluctantly, he released the fingers. With his chest heaving, the scours down his ribs burning and a fresh sweat springing through newly cleaned pores, the fight seemed to have gone out of him, his hand resting, limp, by his side. He was half expecting the sheet to be thrown roughly over him but when they were arranged, placed down so as not to aggravate any of the uncovered injuries, Macnair felt an odd respect for his nurse.

He heard a sigh, the sort of sigh to go with bending down and, shortly after, a few footsteps moving away from him. Gradually he caught his breath, the pain subsided to a dull ache, his muscles relaxing a degree. He listened to it for a while; each breath in, each wheezing breath out. His throat still smarted.

-

A clunk interrupted a nap he didn't realise he had been taking. Usually, Macnair would have been aggravated by the unannounced visitor but his injuries flared his anger to somewhere around fuming and livid. Adding into the mixture his grumbling stomach, thirst and the headache creeping on, he was thoroughly pissed.

He wanted to know where his supposed nurse was and why they hadn't fed him yet. He felt like he'd been lying there for hours, his guts churning, as though it was slowly digesting itself but doubted his shouts would have been answered, even if he could. There was a hollow scraping sound. Someone cleared their throat. He was no longer alone. Even though it would do nothing to improve his mood and would hurt like the blazes, Macnair made to demand a drink.

"Water?" The question was stolen from his lips before he had even opened his mouth. So his nurse was back then. Good. The lazy sod could tend to him properly, Macnair thought with a scowl and the barest of nods. If he was in any fit state to, he would have smacked the negligent son of a-

The delicious sound of water being poured into a tin mug stopped his thought process in its tracks. Soon enough, the touch that was now becoming so familiar raised his head up and the rim of a cup pressed to waiting lips. Clumsily at first, not helped much by Macnair's greedy attempts at guzzling every drop like each was his last, the pair negotiated enough to successfully get more into the bounty hunter and less on his bare chest.

Once his thirst was quenched, his throat seemed easier, swallowing less painful. His stomach on the otherhand, was not pleased in the least. Like a bear waking up from winter-long hibernation, it was snarling for sustenance. With a welcome scent of cooked onions, beef and fresh bread, it seemed his prayers had been answered for the second time. This nurse was learning.

Macnair lifted a tremulous arm to take whatever utensils would be offered, determined to feed himself. He would not stand the indignity of being spoon fed like a baby. To his annoyance his arm was too lead-weighted, his body too weak to keep this up long and that bloody nurse had ignored him. The limb dropped heavily, sending bursts of pain along his nerves. He swore.

"I'm going to prop you up, and then feed you," The nurse informed him.

"I'll feed myself," Macnair growled, though more to do with his vocal chords than his anger.

The same spell that had lifted him from his less than comfortable bed earlier that day was again employed and the nurse made short work of creating a stand of pillows. Blood rushed to his back, tingling and making him aware, once more, of every little perforation in the flesh there as the spell laid him easily against his new support. He hated pins and needles.

"Open up," His previous statement, it proved, had fallen on deaf ears. His nurse was determined to strip away every scrap of dignity he had left, humiliating him, it seemed. Macnair clenched his jaw defiantly but at another lurch in his stomach he was forced to open his mouth. At the first morsel, he realised that the bread had been broken up into small chunks and was now saturated in beef broth. It appeared he was not expected to be able to chew either and that stung his pride, regardless of how tasty the meal was. He could masticate wounded or not and he took a stubborn joy in proving it. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.


	3. Chapter 3

**Meddle Not In The Affairs Of Dragons**

Having decided that his broth and bread counted as lunch, he calculated it to be around mid afternoon to early evening. The quality of light seeping through his blindfold, of which there was not much, had changed, dimming and becoming a little less warm. Other than that he had no way of being able to estimate how long he had lain there, or rather been left propped up on pillows. Although it was always difficult to tell when one was left alone as a few minutes could crawl by like hours and hours in turn could feel as minutes.

His nurse had come in a while after feeding him and chucked a foul tasting, evil smelling potion down his neck. Macnair had choked and spluttered but eventually satisfied the nurse enough to be left alone. Having been warned it would make him drowsy, the bounty hunter was determined to stay awake and prove the nurse wrong. He had fought away the prickle of sleep and was now smugly reclining, waiting for his next meal. If it was as good as the last one, he would probably forgive his carer earlier negligence.

"Hungry?" The question caught him off guard as he hadn't heard anyone approach let alone alert him in more friendly ways to their presence. Not even so much as a 'good-afternoon'.

"And where've you been?" Macnair rasped, irritated at being left so long. A chill had crawled up his limbs by now and was settling on his chest.

"Sorry mum," His nurse was amused. _That cocky little- _Macnair stopped to smoulder quietly. Another meal was in the posession of his carer and Walden was hungry, his stomach attested to it with a plaintive gurgle. Again, he held out his hand to take cutlery and feed himself and again he was refused. But rather than the silent ignorance of before, cool fingers pressed lightly on his wrist and pushed his fatigued arm down. "Let me,"

Macnair was silent, torn between flooring the presumptive shit and being fed. He felt like a half-feral dog who might just bite the hand that fed it if pushed too far. But at the same time a shiver of civility in him, hidden somewhere in his musculature, was moved at the gentility to the nurses's hands.

The bounty hunter swallowed, swallowing his pride in turn, enough at least, to obey. Still, just because he was co-operating it didn't mean he had to like it and subsequently he spent his meal-time scowling deeply and concocting ways to exact his belated revenge. He had to admit though, his carer was just that. Not a drop was spilled on his chest nor did any dribble down his chin though he supposed it was a skill to be acquired, as a healer.

"I'll be back in the morning. Better to get your rest now." The footsteps were already moving away from him. _What do you think i've been doing all day, arsehole?_ Macnair thought sourly at where he assumed the retreating figure of his nurse would be.

-

Macnair found himself almost unconcious shortly after the nurse had gone. His sleep was deep and undisturbed and the next two days passed much in the same way as before. His nurse would come, saying very little, while Macnair swore and railed between bandage changes, washes and meals.

His throat was feeling better, although the vile concoction he was forced to swallow between his lunch and dinner was not helping, so far as he could see anyway. His shoulder was tight and protested almost constantly. Each time his hip-wound was cleaned, a deeper shame surfaced and it was not entirely to do with the inability to it himself. A tiny, confused thought almost suffered the indignation and the precise movements of his nurse because he found it darkly attractive. Of course, he reasoned, it was completely because he hadn't been with a woman for a while and most definately because he _wasn't_ supposed to find it appealing.

The previous night had been close and suffocating in his sheets. The cause was a second potion he had been given to fight the first signs of fever. As a result his sleep had been disturbed and he had lain awake for a time just listening. In the beginning he had heard only a pair of crickets trilling their quaint music but eventually the sounds of a curious animal had reached him.

It whimpered and whined, sending shivers down his spine with the unearthly song rising into a blackness he could not see. It was made the more terrifying that his imagination had gotten the better of him. _Probably just a wolf, _he tried to reason, a sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip, _nothing to worry about. Big chap like you Macnair, nothing at all to worry about..._

Dawn had come slowly but he felt it and with its arrival, the animal left. It was only then he allowed himself to return to his restless sleep. He decided he would ask his nurse what it was but the opportunity had not arisen. His nurse had not spoken a word and had left quickly, refusing any inticement into conversation. _Unless someone else was seeing to me today..._ Walden wondered. Usually there was some hint it was the nurse he'd come to know and loath, a snigger, a formal warning of what was to come, something; anything.

A quiver of loneliness pricked his senses. He was getting used to the company of his carer, but outright silence left him vacant and alone. He found he had little to look forward too if the only person he knew to be there refused to speak and the bland landscape he imagined beyond held even less sound to punctuate his day. By his midday meal, Macnair had resolved to ask who his nurse was and where he was being kept. At least that way he would have something to muse over if his nurse was set on being unsocial.

"Hi, nice to hear you again," Walden hoped his smile was sincere when the pad of steps approached his bedside. "Whoever you are..." A stony silence met his attempt at subtlety.

"So..." He tried again while his nurse moved about, making ready to feed him "Where exactly are we?" The bounty hunter sighed and took his first mouthful of food. "Hopefully far away from that dragon, wherever it is I'm boarded. Which is a point, what are you after for all this? Cash-wise i mean?" He swallowed a second portion. "How do you know who I-"

"Macnair," This was it. The pause where his nurse collected the relevant data and told him what he wanted to know. _About bloody time..._ "You talk too much,"

-

Brushing fingertips across his chest brought Macnair fully into consciousness later that evening. At first their pattern seemed random but soon it became evident they were tracking the myriad scars etched in flesh and muscle, like tattoos of his conquests and failures. A flicker of a frown whispered on his brow, uncertain as to the reason for this. It was his nurse; at least, he thought it was. The touch was familiar.

"So many scars…" The whispered statement sent shivers down the bounty hunter's spine. In the darkness of his bandages his imagination was running wild. When the gentle digits paused over the silver of his nipple ring he held his breath. "Though I wouldn't have thought you went for body piercings…Anyway," The fingers left his torso and with it went a sigh. "I've your dinner,"

Macnair didn't quite trust his voice. He was a little dismayed at the sudden physicality of someone who only this morning refused to speak to him and could only nod dumbly to show his acknowledgement. Soon enough he was being fed once more, the food slipping down his throat easier now it was not so raw.

"This is good, where did you learn to cook?" Walden offered by way of a silence breaker as his dinner neared its end. He didn't expect an answer though, he was beginning to anticipate his nurse's moods. "I'm not much of a cook myself, I usually burn things or manage to well and truly fuck it up," He chuckled around a mouthful of slightly more chunky food, though it was still a broth of sorts. It simply held some vegetables and shredded chicken.

"Though I can make a mean Griffon Curry – mum's old recipe," The nurse withdrew arranging something to his left. It sounded like crockery moving across wood. Silence lay thick and heavy now about them, punctuated by Macnair's breathing and faint wheeze it still contained.

"My mum taught me, though I'm nothing to measure her cooking on. I've not found a better chef yet," The nurse said as they moved, Macnair heard, and a metal latch rattled, being lifted. Something soft thwumped onto the floor and the trunk was closed. "It'll be cold tonight, I thought you might like another blanket,"

Before Macnair could acquiesce, a padded quilt was arranged over him and snug warmth crept into his limbs. It was arranged around his shoulders carefully. Walden reached out for his nurse's fingers, enclosing a calloused hand around them and squeezing. He wanted to let his nurse know he was grateful for what was being done for him, mostly though, he wanted to let that cool touch dance across his torso again.

The nurse pulled out of the grip slowly, easing away. Cloth fluttered as if a tent flap were being drawn back. A thought occurred to him that the dragon he had heard in his semi lucid state days ago, had not been a dragon at all, but canvas snapping in a breeze.

"I'm Charlie, by the way," Then the tent flap dropped back into place and Macnair was alone once again.

-

"I heard you last night," Where Macnair's first words to Charlie the following morning. "I heard you the other night but I thought it was an animal or something. What's so bad it haunts you at night?" The quiet that followed was sharp with tension, an acid taint in the air that threatened to smother all in its poison.

"You watched it, Macnair, you tell me,"

"What? Who-"

"Charlie, I told you. I'm Charlie Weasley," Macnair turned a pale shade of green beneath his bandages. It had been a few years since he had heard the name but he remembered it. Everyone knew a Weasley, there were that many of them, but Voldemort had lost the war and death-eaters were still being captured and killed by Aurors or anyone able to restrain them long enough.

"Charlie Weasley? The same Charlie Weasley who…" Icy dread, an oozing pit of blackness, churned in the bounty hunter's stomach at the realization of exactly who was looking after him.

_The same Charlie Weasley whose sister death-eaters raped and tortured to death, whose youngest brother was left insane? The same Charlie Weasley I captured in my duties and handed over to the mercy of the Lestrange brothers?_


End file.
